Extreme Makeover

Ever since Bass Brewery trademarked its logo in 1876, companies have been coming up with their own symbols to differentiate their products.

Ever since Bass Brewery trademarked its logo in 1876, companies
have been coming up with their own symbols to differentiate their
products and offer a way for the public to quickly identify with
their brands.

Creating an image that serves this purpose is a tall order. Just
ask Terri Goldstein, CEO of The Goldstein
Group. Her New York-based firm has worked with some of
America’s most familiar companies to recreate their images.
The list of clients includes Gulden’s mustard, Act mouthwash
and Luden’s throat drops.

Last year, Goldstein made her first foray into the world of pool
chemicals by assisting Arch Chemicals, now a part of Lonza, with
reimagining its Poolife brand. Before beginning, however, she and
the Atlanta-based company spent six months conducting several
rounds of qualitative and quantitative research.

“Before restaging a brand you have to understand how people
come to think about, speak about, look for and recognize the
brand,” she says.

Early on, Goldstein oversaw four focus groups in which dealers and
consumers participated in a number of questionnaires and
activities, including a process she called color crayon research.
This required the participants to draw what they recalled about any
brand in the swimming pool chemical category. Ultimately, Goldstein
determined that neither group associated specific colors or logos
with Poolife, identifiers known as brand equities.

“They all knew the name and brand, and liked the brand, but
there was no recall to [it],” she says. “It
hadn’t been updated successfully in years.”

Permission was granted to change the brand’s look and
packaging without the risk of losing any of its core
identifiers.

Once she established the extent to which the brand could be
restaged, Goldstein moved on to the next and perhaps most crucial
aspect of the effort: the logo. It was important for the group to
establish a positive image that consumers would associate with the
product. Goldstein noticed that the product category lacked
powerful imagery and believed it would benefit Lonza to incorporate
a colorful and joyous look into the rebranding. In the end, she
came up with a simple yet powerful image that triggered an
emotional response to pool ownership: a simple pool towel and
flip-flops.

“When restaging you need to create visceral reaction,”
she explains. “When we went in with the sample artwork,
dealers and consumers said, ‘I can imagine myself in the pool
right now.’”

This change, she says, will increase loyalty to the brand, as well
as attract new users and dealers.
“When a brand on the outside has been paid attention to,
consumers believe what’s on the inside is actually
better,” she adds.